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   P.T. Screwed

Because Florida State doesn't matter any more to the college football world, you probably missed this distasteful bit of news. The University has instructed its broadcast rights holder for football to fire color analyst – and former FSU QB – Peter Tom Willis because P.T. was too critical on-air of the Seminoles during their several year long now stint of pathetic football.

To fire a University alumni, a guy who is a legend of your football program, a guy who did his job with excellence, because you now suck at football Florida State is further evidence of how far you've fallen from your one time greatness.

The football team stinks so fire the color analyst. How does that work?

It works when you've forgotten what it means to have pride. It works when you've forgotten how to be accountable. It works when you've run out of ideas about how to get back on top.

It's the color analysts fault, obviously.

P.T. Willis raised eyebrows during the 2005 season when he referred to FSU's offense as a "high-school offense" following the FSU-Clemson game. Willis said his emotions got the better of him at that point – and why wouldn't they, he was one of the guys who helped build the legacy FSU has spent the last 7 seasons dismantling.

The fact is Willis was fair. Always. He wasn't nasty, he didn't call names or take shots, but he was honest and FSU doesn't want honesty it wants history. It wants to believe things are just like they were and if it weren't for some disappointing quarterbacks, they'd still be winning championships.

That of course is total B.S. and the greatness they once enjoyed is getting harder and harder to see in the rear view mirror.

"When we did something well I made that clear," said Willis in the Tallahassee Democrat. "And when we did something wrong I pointed it out. That's what an analyst is supposed to do."

Apparently not at Florida State where the most important thing is to try and whitewash what has become a complete embarrassment of a football program from its doddering, delusional head coach to what were a group of laughably incompetent assistant coaches and a roster full of entitled players living off the blood, sweat, tears and glory of guys 10 and 15 years removed from the program.

From academics, to coaching, to success on the field, Florida State has become a complete wreck after being the top program in the sport less than 10 years ago.

The fact is, P.T. Willis – and everyone associated with the Seminoles except for the fans – has been too easy on the team and coaching staff recently.

I'll say what has to be said. It's time for Bobby Bowden to go and the sooner the better. He's lost it. He's your grandpa who still thinks he can drive, but backs over the mailbox on the way out the drive and bumps the curb going around corners.

Someone needs to take the keys away for his own good.

Just because he built the program, doesn't mean he gets to ruin it too.

This idea that Bowden or Joe Paterno have earned the right to leave whenever they want is absurd.

What are they, Supreme Court justices hired for life?

No. They are employed by Universities and should be subject to performance reviews like every other employee and their performance has been dismal lately.

Bobby Bowden's the head coach. The buck stops here. He's ultimately responsible and he's failed the program – most specifically by not firing his idiot son Jeff as offensive coordinator forcing the booster club to remove him.

Hey, FSU, if you think P.T. Willis was rough on baby boy Bowden by referring to his offense as "high school," be thankful I wasn't on the broadcast.

P.T. could have called Jeff Bowden the "Fredo" of the Bowden family. The runt of the litter, a complete boob who nearly destroyed a proud family.

He could have said Jeff got his job only because of who breast fed him.

He could have said QB coach Daryl Dickey was the worst position coach in college football and wasted more talent than anyone besides Britney Spears.

He could have said all of those things because all of those things are true, but he didn't because he loves the Noles and was trying to protect the Noles and showed tremendous reserve.

Only when the Seminoles' impotence became shameful did Willis speak up, and good for him for doing so.

Shame on you Florida State for firing P.T. Willis because he was too critical. Maybe if you were more critical of the joke your football team has become it wouldn't have fallen this far.

Here's one of my biggest pet peeves in the entire sports world, the mark broadcaster.

I don't mind if you root for the home team, if you want the home team to win and shade things in their favor, but don't wiz on my head and tell me it's raining.

The nonsensical, optimist, pro-local team broadcaster is a hairy wart on the broadcasting industry.

You don't have to be negative or critical or tough, but you do have to be accurate otherwise you're Gorilla Monsoon.

College football is the worst for this. You listen to a game on radio and you have no idea what is actually taking place because the announcer is so far up the rear end of the school – but you see what happens to P.T. Willis at FSU, the guy gets canned because he's deemed "too critical" and you can hardly blame them.

Most guys broadcasting college sports are unabashed fans who want to be liked. They don't have the stones to say the emperor has no clothes regardless of how bad things get. It's all "go team," "the refs screwed us" and "we've got some great freshmen coming up."

What a load – and you know who you are.

There are more important things, or there should be to a broadcaster, than just keeping his job and making sure everyone on the Rivals' message board likes you.

Things like guts and integrity and honesty.

Perhaps I'm the only one who believes that?

Perhaps I'm the only one willing to eat a suspension because I won't retract what I know to be an absolute truth that the Chinese Olympic team dopes its athletes. Perhaps I'm the only one willing to give up doing something I love because I won't back down to a Chinese pressure group.

Perhaps I'm the only one who'll eat a suspension at ESPN because I try to put the Confederate Flag into a context that isn't all about racism and bigotry.

Perhaps I'm the only one willing to lose a job in Birmingham because I won't back off Nick Saban or get fired by Rivals.com because I have the spine to say Bobby Petrino is a sociopath.

Perhaps.

But I have integrity and that means something to me. It also means something to me that you can listen to me on 790 the Zone and know I'm telling the truth regardless of the harm done to me.

Regardless of the repercussions.

I look in the mirror and can live with the decisions I make. I stand for something. I take it seriously that you listen to me and expect the truth. Expect honesty. Expect not to be taken for a ride.

I respect you too much as someone taking the time out of your day to listen to what I have to say to give you a line of B.S. to cover for some damn athlete or team.

But I am a professional. I am on the radio because of my passion for sports, my passion for radio, my passion for you. I'm not here to hang out in locker rooms or get free tickets or go to cocktail parties with head coaches.

Some guys are.

Screw them.

So FSU fires P.T. Willis as its color commentator for football because he's "too critical" even though that's code for "too honest," and I can sympathize with him because I've been there.

I'm marginally employed instead of swimming in cash as a talk show host because people think I'm dangerous. I'm a loose cannon. People have called me worse names than that, but what I know is that is code for "honest."

I am honest and so was P.T. Willis and that gets you in trouble these days in a corporate media world controlled by stockholders instead of journalists where the most important thing is to not make waves, but make friends.

I'm never going to lift my leg over your head and tell you its raining. It's not in my nature. I'll accept the consequences.

Sorry to go off on a rant there. Some of that stuff goes back a long way. While I can accept it, I can't forget it.